How to be… Popular

This week’s episode was all about being a likeable person and attracting people. You know those people who everyone seems to gravitate towards and wants to be around, this is kinda a guide to do what they do naturally. Here’s a summary of what I talked about:

How to be a great conversationist:

Be genuine, by listening, paying attention and noting body language

Get the person talking about their self; ask questions about their interests

Focus on you’re the similarities you share

Make people feel good about themselves, subtle compliments such as “oh wow, that’s really impressive” after they’ve said what they’re up to at the moment, work best

Finish with something memorable, not just “it was nice to meet you” but something like, “I’m so glad that I ran into you today, this was such an interesting conversation, hopefully we’ll run into each other again soon.”

Use touch, where appropriate, to eliminate the illusion of distance and create the impression of a connection

How to be Likeable:

-Be genuine

-Show passion in something, even better, share your passion with other people

-Be funny (laugh at yourself)

-But don’t laugh about other people, people might like gossip but they don’t like the gossip

How to make friends:

Join a sports team, a photography class, a theatre group, join a band or go to open comedy nights. Just go somewhere where you’ll meet people who like the same stuff as you (or join SYN because so many people with so many different interests join SYN but the one thing we have in common is that we’re all friendly. We’re literally there because we want to talk!)

Take the plunge and tell someone you’d like to be friends, or organize to hang out, get coffee, see a movie or go out together (if you ask someone to do something one on one with you they might think you’re asking them on a date so if you can invite several people that’d be great, otherwise make it clear that you want to be friends)

How to be Popular summed up:

Popularity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, the word ‘popular’ is associated with people seeming physically attractive, but also intimidating and aggressive

Kids that are popular in school tend to be less popular and less successful out of school because they don’t learn to adapt, cope and build a social life in unstructured situations

Being likeable and genuine is a better thing to aim toward than popularity

The social lives that people flaunt on social media aren’t an accurate portrayal of society, people put up photos as many photos of themselves doing fun things with fun people because they want everyone who sees it to believe that they themeselves are a fun person. This may or may not be true, a picture only tells a fraction of the story.